Action at Resolute Forest Products AGM in Georgia

An enormous LED screen truck has broadcast images of beautiful forests and thousands of tweets and Facebook messages are calling on logging giant Resolute Forest Products to protect the Boreal Forest, outside the company’s Annual General Meeting in Augusta, Georgia. Greenpeace staff also attended the meeting as shareholders to implore the company to invest in real solutions for the Boreal Forest.

The 40-foot LED truck showed the names of the thousands of supporters who have asked the company to work with environmental organizations and unions to save jobs, respect Indigenous rights and protect the Boreal Forest. Already more than 56,000 people across the world have signed a “Stand For Forests” declaration, calling on the company to act.

Resolute recently lost important Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificates, covering more than 8 million hectares of forest in both Quebec and Ontario. These third party certificates, which verify responsible forestry, are key to selling pulp, paper and lumber products to the international markets. The province of Quebec’s independent Chief Forester’s stated that more than 90% of endangered caribou habitat has vanished in the Lac St Jean region where Resolute currently operates. If current logging plans continue, the species will be eradicated in the next few decades. This area supplies products for Canadian, US and other international markets.

Greenpeace is committed to working with forestry companies in order to help them ensure jobs, support communities, respect rights of First Nations and protect endangered Boreal Forest areas.